1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device which is formed by fabricating an integrated circuit in a semiconductor substrate.
2. Prior Art
In the manufacture of semiconductor chips, generally, a large number of identical integrated circuits are formed in the individual blocks on a semiconductor wafer, then those blocks are separated, and thus a large number of semiconductor chips as many as the individual blocks are produced together efficiently.
When a large number of semiconductor chips are obtained from one semiconductor wafer, the larger the area of each individual semiconductor chip, the smaller the number of semiconductor chips becomes which are produced from limited area of a semiconductor wafer. The semiconductor chips found to contain defects are discarded. As the area of semiconductor chips discarded increases, the area of a semiconductor wafer discarded becomes larger and the productivity becomes lower. Therefore, for better use of semiconductor wafer and higher productivity, it is desirable to reduce the size of the semiconductor chips separated from a semiconductor wafer.
However, despite the demand for down-sizing of semiconductor chips, there is a trend for the size of high-density semiconductor chips to be increasing in pursuit for compact-size semiconductor devices incorporating semiconductor chips.
An example of a semiconductor device using this kind of semiconductor chip is a semiconductor device disclosed in JP-A-05-235092.
According to this prior art, in semiconductor devices for driving a liquid crystal panel, by successively arranging a plurality of liquid-crystal-panel-drive IC chips having identical functions on one carrier material, and conducting a control signal for those IC chips through the liquid-crystal-panel-drive IC chips with an identical function, the number of external connection terminals on the carrier material can be decreased, and the resulting decrease in mounting area enables the size reduction of semiconductor devices.